Anti-gun groups regrouping

After spate of shootings, SNUG and ENOUGH look to step up their work

Updated 8:58 pm, Monday, May 14, 2012

Harris Oberlander, CEO of Trinity Alliance and head of SNUG, talks about the recent shootings in Albany while standing outside the Trinity Alliance headquarters Monday, May 14, 2012 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Harris Oberlander, CEO of Trinity Alliance and head of SNUG, talks...

Harris Oberlander, CEO of Trinity Alliance and head of SNUG, talks about the recent shootings in Albany while standing outside the Trinity Alliance headquarters Monday, May 14, 2012 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Harris Oberlander, CEO of Trinity Alliance and head of SNUG, talks...

Harris Oberlander, CEO of Trinity Alliance and head of SNUG, talks about the recent shootings in Albany while standing outside the Trinity Alliance headquarters Monday, May 14, 2012 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Harris Oberlander, CEO of Trinity Alliance and head of SNUG, talks...

Harris Oberlander, CEO of Trinity Alliance and head of SNUG, talks about the recent shootings in Albany while standing outside the Trinity Alliance headquarters Monday, May 14, 2012 in Albany, N.Y. (Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Harris Oberlander, CEO of Trinity Alliance and head of SNUG, talks...

People gather in front of The Free School on Elm Street on Monday, May 14, 2012 in Albany, N.Y. A fatal shooting place near this location.(Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

People gather in front of The Free School on Elm Street on Monday,...

A SNUG sign is displayed in the window of The Free School on Elm Street on Monday, May 14, 2012 in Albany, N.Y. A fatal shooting place near this location.(Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

A SNUG sign is displayed in the window of The Free School on Elm...

A SNUG sign is displayed in the window of The Free School on Elm Street on Monday, May 14, 2012 in Albany, N.Y. A fatal shooting place near this location.(Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

A SNUG sign is displayed in the window of The Free School on Elm...

An ice cream truck rides by on Grand Street at the bottom of Elm Street on Monday, May 14, 2012 in Albany, N.Y. A fatal shooting place near this location.(Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

An ice cream truck rides by on Grand Street at the bottom of Elm...

Signs are displayed on the door of The Free School on Elm Street on Monday, May 14, 2012 in Albany, N.Y. A fatal shooting place near this location.(Lori Van Buren / Times Union)

Signs are displayed on the door of The Free School on Elm Street on...

ALBANY — Volunteers from SNUG were ready over the weekend to make the trip to Albany Medical Center Hospital in case any crime victims found their way through the emergency room doors. The goal is to speak with victims who may be involved with gangs, drugs or bad crowds and try to convince them to change their ways.

It didn't take long for the first call to come in.

Outreach workers from the anti-violence program were at the hospital early Sunday morning, looking to speak with Andre Gipson if the 22-year-old city man recovered from a gunshot wound to his left thigh. They never did. Gipson bled to death that morning after one of several bullets fired Saturday night at the corner of Elm and Grand streets pierced his femoral artery.

The volunteers were back again that night after two 16-year-olds were shot in their thighs in Arbor Hill. The bullets, fired around 11 p.m. in the 200 block of Clinton Avenue, missed the teens' arteries — they are expected to survive. Harris Oberlander, CEO of the Trinity Alliance, which runs SNUG, could not say whether his volunteers spoke with the teens after they were treated.

Police said the shootings were not connected.

After a brief hiatus, SNUG, which is "guns" spelled backward, will be up and running as the nights get warmer and the risk of violent crime rises. The program was suspended in October after its funding was cut from the city's 2012 budget. SNUG was resuscitated after city lawmakers voted in November to match $150,000 the program was granted from the state.

ENOUGH, another anti-violence program that urges people to trade in guns for gift certificates, will also soon begin to aggressively advertise its efforts for the first time in months.

"The timing is perfect," said Pastor Charlie Muller, a guiding vision behind ENOUGH, which will place ads in newspapers and online and send volunteers out to the streets. The group fields anonymous calls from residents who say they have a gun to trade in. Muller or another volunteer then meets the caller in a safe place where they take the firearm in exchange for a gift certificate. Last week, Muller said he took a Glock 9mm loaded with hollow-point tips from a person on Grand Street in exchange for a $150 Crossgates Mall gift certificate. The weapon was taken from a location not more than 100 yards from where Gipson was shot. Muller said he believed it was a community gun, the term for a firearm made readily available to those in the neighborhood with a taste for mayhem.

"You see the gun and what it could do to someone, some kid, and it really hits you," Muller said.

This past weekend, city police recovered two guns not far from the scene of Sunday's shooting: One from a 16-year-old from Troy who dropped it while running from cops on Central Avenue, another from a 19-year-old who police say was smoking marijuana on Lexington Avenue and stashed a .40-caliber pistol under nearby stairs.

Muller said ENOUGH has removed around 420 guns from city streets. Both he and Oberlander say violent crime rates drop significantly when their programs are running at full steam.

ENOUGH suffered from a lack of funding after it received an initial $50,000 grant in 2008, Muller said. The program was established shortly after 10-year-old Kathina Thomas was killed by a stray bullet in West Hill. Muller said donations and partnerships with the city police, the Albany County district attorney's office and the Albany County Sheriff's Office have helped raise nearly $70,000 to get the program running near full capacity again.

"We've really had to scrap and struggle for a while," Muller said.

In addition to trips to the hospital, SNUG goes into the community and seeks out youths on the brink of falling into a cycle or crime. Oberlander said it took months to find the right volunteers, those who once embraced the gangster lifestyle but have since changed their ways and can communicate with young people whose lives can be turned around.

"The community has to raise its voice," he said, "and find a sense of 'This is our block. This is where our kids are being raised. We're going to take back our streets.' "